| Opening up my journal again for the first time in a while, this entry is the beginning of a series I’m calling “Type4Real”- featuring real talk about all things relating to natural hair and texturism, as well as colorism and the concept of Blackness. These are topics that are important to me personally, and I have a lot to say about them! So when I saw a post that alleged that Andre Walker, the creator of the popular hair typing system, is a texturist, I knew it would be a perfect first Type4Real post. The hair typing chart is one that I am very familiar with, as are many who have been aware of the natural hair movement in any of its iterations. When I was in middle school, I started to do my own hair. This was during the era when NaturallyCurly.com was at its peak, and I spent a lot of time on that site and similar online spaces. This was where I learned about the hair type chart. I learned that I had type 4 hair, and I liked the sound of that. It sounded better to me than simply saying my hair was “kinky” or “nappy”. I had an official hair type, just like everyone else, that came with its own standards of care. I was never quite sure exactly what hair type I was- 4a seemed too loose, and 4c seemed too coarse, but I didn’t have “Z-shaped coils” like type 4b apparently did (to this day I still don’t know what they mean by “Z-shaped”). Regardless, I knew I was somewhere in the 4s, as are the majority of Black people. |
I saw a lot of images like this one showcasing examples of the different textures. They definitely varied, and I never knew until recently where this chart even came from. Apparently, it was created by Andre Walker, a famous hairstylist known for doing Oprah’s hair, in the 90s. This is all well and good until we reach the texturism allegations- texturism being prejudice and discrimination towards people with certain hair types- namely, Black people with the kinkiest hair. Texturism often goes hand in hand with colorism, as both predominantly affect people with Black features.
Allegedly, Walker believes that everyone with type 4 hair should chemically straighten it, as it’s too “unmanageable” otherwise. (here’s a link to curlynikki.com which discusses it, and while this is often repeated, I can’t find any evidence that he said it for sure. It doesn’t much matter to me, as this was the widely held belief at the time regardless of whether Walker said it, but I don’t want to slander the man lol!) According to afrocenchix dot com Walker’s original chart didn’t even include 3c or 4c hair types, and those were added later by the community. Aisle one beauty explains that he first created it to sell his own hair products in the 90s. The fact that he directly profited from the alleged texturism makes his actions seem far more nefarious.
Here’s my take: I don’t think the concept of the chart itself is inherently problematic. But I do think we get too absorbed into it, it’s like zodiac signs or something. And just like there’s so much more to someone than their star sign, there’s a lot more that differentiates the hair on each one of our heads than just the curl pattern. Hell, a lot of us, myself included, have multiple curl patterns on our head. However, for many young people like myself, the hair chart was a good jumping-off point for us to begin to discover about our hair, after which we started to learn about things like porosity and density.
I do think texturism is a massive issue and falls under the umbrella of anti-Blackness that is pervasive in our society. I also think it is important for us within Black culture to differentiate our Afro-textured hair, as we tend to have completely unique experiences with our hair than those with other hair types. (Don’t even get me started on anyone with any amount of volume to their curls claiming they have an “afro”.) However, I think it is misguided to focus on this hair type chart in our quest to dismantle texturism. Even if we outlawed the chart today, we’d still have folks talking about “good hair” and calling each other busted for not slicking their edges. It goes a lot deeper, and there is a lot more work to be done.
I hope to talk a lot more about texturism, anti blackness, and perceptions of self in this series! Happy belated Juneteenth everyone!